Portrait of a the Basterd as a Young Man
by emilyinthetaiga
Summary: But once upon a time, Sgt. Donowitz had only been Donny. ...he hadn't been a good boy then either. R for profanity, racial slurs, sexuality, violence. Please, please review, I'll always be sure to hit you back!
1. Black Ribbon and A Bottle of Gin

**Forest outside Rodelheim, Germany 5:15 AM**

Sgt. Donowitz opens his eyes, feeling like he rolled over in the night only to find it was already morning. He is still half asleep. His foot, which for once _isn't_ stuffed into a GI sock inside an unforgiving black combat boot, is still wedged in the door between dream and reality.

_darling when you're near_

His chest tightens.

_there's such an air_

A gentle touch is leaving him and he fights it like he's never fought in his life, clenching his jaw and shutting his eyes again. He hates himself with all his might.

_of spring about it_

"Fuckin' Cole Porter," he says aloud. The gravel in his voice surprises him. Did that happen over night too? Speaking breaks the spell - he is fully awake and now aware of every tendon and ligament in his battle-broken body. He sits up with a groan, scratching his head of dark filthy hair as he looks around him. He can't remember getting into the sleeping bag, let alone taking it out of his ruck sack. There is a bottle of gin at his feet, half-empty. Wicki snorts from inside the bag next to him, as if to ask, "What did you think you were going to do, kick the habit?"

"Not in this life," Sgt. Donowitz says grimly, creaking into a squatting position and lumbering out of the tent. It is something the boys say to each other._ Not in this life. _ Sgt. Donowitz, like the rest of the boys, might have started out as an individual with aspirations and all that naive shit, but the machine has overtaken the vast majority of his will. _Half of me is dead, _he thinks over again, _and the other half belongs to the Basterds. _The morning sun is pale and cold like the stretched, panicked skin of the men they've left in a bloody trail. _Not men, _he reminds himself. _Nazis. Animals. Pricks._

Now outside the tent, Sgt. Donowitz cracks his neck on either side and sniffs absently. A couple of the other guys are nudging dirt onto the firepit. Lt. Raine stands on high ground with his rifle in one scarred hand. It's quiet for now. Donowitz lights a cigarette dug from his front pocket and quiets his buzzing tongue with a curl of smoke. It's all stale, of course. He hasn't been able to taste anything since Munich. _Fuck Cole Porter_, he thinks again decidedly, slicking his hair back with both hands. He fixes his mouth in a smirk which will stay as long as he needs it to. Donowitz leans over to retrieve a baseball bat from the dirt, tossing its length between his hands deftly. With this, he has flicked an internal switch to fully become a Basterd and nothing else.

"Christ, Donny, you look fuckin' terrible," Ulmar laughs from the fire-pit.

Sgt. Donowitz says nothing. He stares at the bat and doesn't see Ulmar's face drop.

"You, uh...you were really crazy last night..." Ulmar trails off, poking the ashes dejectedly. _This is his way of asking if I'm alright, _Donowitz thinks. He forces a laugh which Ulmar looks surprised, but relieved, to hear.

"Yeah, well, I wasn't going to let all the shit you lifted go to waste."

"Sure. I mean, you were talking about that girl a lot towards the end, and we all -"

"What?" Donowitz says suddenly. His mouth is dry.

Ulmar looks at him again searchingly. The other guys have turned to stare at him too, and Sgt. Donowitz feels uncomfortably vulnerable. It is a feeling he despises, so he tries to backtrack - to cover up his mistake.

"You mean that broad in Hamburg?" he grins, but Ulmar isn't laughing.

"No, you kept saying this girl's name, it was all fucked. I m-mean, you were fucked up."

"Well, ah. I don't know..." Donowitz pulls his boots out of the tent and starts to strap them onto his sore feet. Wicki has climbed out and is staring at him as well, rubbing his red-rimmed eyes.

"Oh, Laos? I thought he was talking about the place," Wicki adds, his voice thick.

"Nah, it was like Laytos, or Louis," Hirschberg pipes up, and Donowitz shoots him a dark look.

"I don't know what the fuck you idiots are talking about," he says, laughing. "The hell if I know what I was sayin', I was smashed for crissake. We all were. _Damn_, I wish we had more nights like that out here. 'Times I feel like we're walking in circles!" Donowitz says just a bit too loud. He can tell from the shifting of the other Basterds that Aldo is listening. "Ah, fuck it. I gotta take a leak."

Sgt. Donowitz does not meet anyone's eye as he stalks out of the camp, undoing his belt for good measure. He feels the weight of his bat, tucked under his right arm. He cannot look at it, but he knows the shape of her handwriting. Sometimes at night, after Wicki falls asleep, he traces the sloping letters with a callused fingertip.

_L-A-O..._

He hates himself, and he hates her too, a lot of the time.

But once upon a time Sgt. Donowitz wasn't Sgt. Donowitz. Instead he was Donny, one of only two Jewish boys on Poplar Street in Boston, Massachusetts, if he wasn't forgetting anyone. Let's say one of three, Sgt. Donowitz thinks. That's about right.

He hadn't been a good boy then either.

When he was Donny, he hadn't smoked a day in his life. He did drink often, but he was a brazen kid, only boasting fifteen years of age, most of which had been spent playing baseball, chewing gum, and more recently, jerking off ferociously to a magazine photo of Carole Lombard.

His tolerance for hard alcohol had made him riotously popular with the boys on his street, as well as a few of the outgoing girls. Donny was often pursued by the girls who hemmed their skirts a tad higher and wore thigh-high stockings to highlight their coltish gams - girls who rubbed their mother's rouge into their cheeks and dusted the top of their buoyant young chests with shimmering powder - girls who "put out" - as his buddies laughed over stolen beer.

Of course, parallel to the crude whispers of Donny and his friends ran the delicate musings of the young girls in town, some not even from the Jewish side. In fact, Donny's name was on the lips of the majority of the girls on Poplar, and hidden in the thoughts of the rest. He had dark chest hair that could be seen at the collar of his dress shirt in Sabbath services, and he winked animatedly at any girl who turned in the presentation of the Torah to glance back at his lean frame. He sat on the curb between two of the guys on his stickball team, and would sometimes lie on his back as the girls walked home for lunch, laughing as their feathers ruffled. Could he see up their dresses? Did they want him to?

Sgt. Donowitz remembers these girls in a colorful, glossy blur, without names or scents or distinct faces. They were forgettable as a whole, Donowitz thinks, as soon as he saw Laoise for the first time. Laoise O'Connor, although she liked to be called Louise for reasons no one knew for sure.

At the second he first saw her, thirty feet away from him, leaning on the awning by Pallin's Pharmacy, Donny felt as if his stomach had collapsed in on itself. She had been in a grey flannel dress that cinched in the back with a shining blue ribbon. No, a black ribbon, you asshole, Donowitz thinks. It was a black ribbon at the small of her back, which he pulled apart softly days later at a school-sponsored social. With a childlike curiosity he watched her turn towards him, as if in slow motion. Her clear green eyes met his just before she smacked him across the face. The jazz band played on in the background, and her girlfriends shuffled away from them, perplexed.

"Don't dothat again!" she exclaimed, and he had laughed at her. Not out of spite or anything, but because she sounded so familiar with him, claiming a right to tell him what to do.

"I w-won't," he grinned at Laoise. She stared back at him, recognizing him only as the boy who had asked her a favor in class the day before.

"You're the one that stole my pencil," she said flatly. It was not necessarily an accusation.

"I'm sorry. I wanted to keep it."

"Oh."

"I want to dance with you." he stated, his brow furrowing.

"Well that's no way to..." Laoise began to protest, but trailed off as Donny reached for her hands. Holding both of hers in his together, he stood motionless. He frowned, frustrated with himself for not listening to Ma before leaving that night.

_One hand on your shoulder, and the other she puts in your hand. And you hold her waist, you hear me, young man? Her waist only, with your other hand, your left hand._

Laoise sighed lightly, taking his hand and placing it below the loose black ribbon on her dress. Their eyes met, and she blushed.

"Like this," she said gently, stepping towards him. Donny found the rhythm and followed her lead until he was comfortable enough to pull their bodies along.


	2. Chewing Gum

**Rodelheim, Germany 7:30 AM**

Sgt. Donowitz crouches behind the remnants of a brick wall, fingering the end of his rifle and staring at the back of Wicki's head. He covers his handsome face with his hands for a second, and listens to himself breathe. When he removes his hands again, the forest around them is still desolate and grey. They wait, their bodies locked like coiled springs, for the signal from Ulmar, who waits for the signal from Aldo.

Donowitz listens but hears nothing. The town has been evacuated of civilians, or so they've heard along the way. They've come for nothing but what the American convoy missed - the Yankees before them can only have done so much. They fight grandly, with the greater good in mind, but Lt. Raine has something else brewing for Donowitz and the boys.

Franz Breithaupt escaped the Allies' attack on Frankfurt, and Lt. Raine received word of him and his men hiding somewhere in a German village to wait it out until the soldiers had passed. The Basterds had waited in the woods outside Rodelheim until their allies had cleared out, and had moved out that morning to stake their claim of the town.

So Donowitz kneels, trying to figure out why Wicki's right leg is shaking.

"Will you knock that off, it's driving me crazy," he hisses.

"My foot's asleep, I can't help it," Wicki whispers back. Ulmar makes frantic hand movements at them from behind a tree thirty feet away. He begs them to shut up and points to his right. Donowitz cranes his neck a tad higher to see over the wall. Lt. Raine has left his cover, and is stalking around a building with his bayonet locked in position. He pauses, scratches the side of his face, and motions towards Ulmar to follow.

Donowitz stands, and Wicki follows, hobbling on one foot and cursing quietly. When they reach the Lieutenant, he speaks quickly and quietly. "I seen 'em through the windows back on the other side. There's only five or six, so Ulmar, you come with me into this hellhole, and Wicki stands guard here with an eye on the perimeter. And Donny...you're up. Think you can handle another one once we've cleaned the building out?"

Donowitz nods grimly, picturing the baseball bat in his rucksack. He exchanges a glance with Ulmar and claps him on the shoulder, perhaps a little too hard. The two men hurry around the edge of the wall and disappear, leaving him alone with Wicki.

"You really ready?" Wicki asks, turning to look at him curiously.

"Why's everybody's asking me that today? How's this different from any other swing?"

"...You're right. It's nothing." Wicki gives Donowitz a long look that he cannot decipher before striding off to find a more helpful guard post. Sgt. Donowitz reaches back a muscled arm to pull out his signature weapon. When the gunshots erupt in the basement below him, he wishes he had chewing gum - the kind that came in baseball card packs.

**Boston, Massachusetts 3:45 PM**

"You coming to my kid sister's Bat Mitzvah, Donno?"

Donny smacked his gum loudly before pulling it out with two fingers. He pressed the pink tack to the street, peeling it off himself with great care.

"Mmwhat?" he asks hazily, obviously not listening.

He had just spotted Laoise with a girlfriend in the bookstore across the street. It was hot that afternoon in Boston - hot enough that his chest and back were sticky, even in just a wife-beater. He scratched his slim arm, glancing at Etta and Roy next to him. They were both from his synagogue, and made a nasty habit of bringing it up all the time.

"Shari's Bat Mitzvah, it's in two weeks. Your Ma said-"

"Sure, yeah, that's good. Lemme know." He hopped off the curb and started across the street. After checking his black hair in the window, he entered the store with the tinkling of an overhead bell. Frustratingly, he recognized the clerk as one of his mother's friends.

"Donny Donowitz, what on earth are you doing in here?" she scoffed, shuffling papers around to look important. Donny looked Mrs. Hyder over, feeling queasy. She had lipstick smeared on her two front teeth. To avoid her questioning, squinty eyes, he looked around, not able to see Laoise.

"Oh, uh...books. You know."

"You're here to purchase a book?" Mrs. Hyder asked. She was suspicious.

"Yeah, sure, why not?" Donny shrugged, shoving his hands in his pockets. He resented her assuming he didn't read, although she was right. "I like, um..." _What are we reading in English, Donny, think! "_Uh, the wolf book. Jack London, I think."

"I see."

"Yeah, he's okay, I guess."

"I don't like him at all," a cool voice replied from Donny's left. He turned to see Laoise, addressing Mrs. Hyder moreso than him. She held the corner of the bookshelf, her fingers wrapped around it gently. Turning her head slightly, she continued as her blond hair fell over to one side. "He's a bit trite, and repetitive. I don't know why it's a classic, actually. Call of the Wild."

"Well, Louise-" Mrs. Hyder began.

"Laoise." Donny corrected, and the light-haired girl turned to him, looking him up and down once intensely.

"I prefer Louise," she brushed him off, turning to walk further into the store. He followed, running a hand through his hair. He wished he could check it again.

"But why?"

"Why what?' Laoise asked coolly, standing on tip-toe to reach a high-up book. Her skirt was raised enough so that Donny could see the back of her thighs. Averting his gaze with much effort, he cleared his throat and walked closer, pulling down the reference book for which she was reaching. He handed it to her gingerly.

"Why would you want people to call you something else?"

"My real name confuses people."

"What are you?" he blurted out.

"What _am _I?" she asked, turning. Her green eyes flashed with electricity. He had agitated her, and at this realization, Donny took a step back. "What does that mean?"

"I mean..." he put his hands back in his pockets to hide that they were shaking. "You're never at temple, but you don't live on the Italian side of town, and your name...you're not English, are you?"

"My parents are from Ireland, if that's what you're asking." She sighed, seating herself at his feet and opening the book on her lap.

"What's that about?" he asked, not wanting to frustrate her further, but still curious.

"It's about Philadelphia," she said, her tone a bit softer. "My brother's gone there for school. Haverford College."

"Ah, college huh? That's pretty swell." He paused. "You going to college too?"

She shrugged, but did not say anything. A silence passed, and Donny debated whether or not to seat himself next to her. When he failed to decide, Laoise looked up and patted the carpet at her side before returning her focus to the encyclopedia. Feeling dumb, Donny obliged her. As Laoise began describing the city's architecture to him, Donny tuned her out and studied instead the things he hadn't noticed before - the sprinkle of freckles across her nose, the glossy shine of her hair, how slender her ankles were, crossed and peeking out from underneath her skirt.

"...want to go someplace?"

She was staring at him. Donny froze. They both knew he hadn't been listening. She smelled like warm vanilla, and as she rolled her eyes and turned back to her book, Donny noticed the curve of her arm. He thought to himself that he might like to kiss her there some day, in the crook of her elbow. Or perhaps touch her lightly with his tongue.


	3. Bliss

**Boston, Massachusetts 8:32 PM**

"Shh..."

"W-wait, I..." Donny's eyes widened in panic.

They had locked themselves in Laoise's attic bedroom after an awkward dinner with her family, as they did every Tuesday night. Donny found himself anxious and jittery all through the week, replaying for himself how her mouth tasted as they kissed for hours on end. At first he had been shocked with how satisfying it was, just to lace his fingers with hers and explore her mouth with his tongue. They hadn't done anything further yet, and although it had been almost four months of Donny ignoring his buddies' questions, he couldn't believe how content he felt. But on that night, Sgt. Donowitz remembers, Laoise had kissed down his neck and chest sweetly, drawing a line down his body towards the waist of his pants. She moved towards the foot of her bed to touch her lips just under his belly button, and this was too much. He jerked away involuntarily, prompting her to lift her perfect face towards his. Donny pressed his back against her headboard and found himself breathing heavily. She tucked a lock of blonde hair behind her right ear.

"You don't...want me to?"

"I mean, I..." Donny stared intently at her delicate pink lips, which were parted slightly in question. She was in a soft white sweater that felt like heaven under his hands, and it was draped off one shoulder now. He hoped she wouldn't fix it. He had bit his lip at the dinner table, listening to her father talk politics while they exchanged long gazes, passing the time until he could chase her upstairs.

Laoise circled his knee with one finger slowly. "I want to, Donny." He felt something surge in him as she said it - something carnal and heated and not at all like the jittery sensation of kissing her mouth. "Please?" she whispered breathlessly. He watched her place a hand on each of his thighs. Suddenly he was hard as a rock.

"Maybe we should -" he began weakly, his voice cracking.

"Baby..." she called him, crawling forward to sit on his lap. She straddled him, Donowitz remembers fondly, with the confidence of a woman, although they had only been sixteen. She touched her lips to his, and Donny's eyes fluttered closed as their tongues met again. He knew this dance now, the halting one they did as Donny let her lead as he had months before. But Loaise's rhythm was changing slowly. She wanted something else from him, something she was afraid he had given other girls already. Her hips rolled against his, and she leaned further into him to kiss his neck. He felt her tongue along the edge of his ear, and when she nibbled his earlobe, he moaned deeply and held her waist tight.

"That's right, Donny." she whispered, kissing his ear once. He hadn't opened this door so not to frighten her, but here Laoise was, her youthful legs wrapped around his waist, grinding her hips onto his lap. She whispered, "Come on, I want you to."

He had never heard anything so sexy. Moaning again, deeper in his throat, Donny nodded, hoping Laoise would understand. He couldn't think of the words. Gracefully, she untangled herself from him, sitting back and kissing him slowly. She traced her fingers down his chest breezily, and he bucked his hips up to meet her as she reached the buttons on his pants.

Loaise pulled back. They breathed heavily, looking intensely into each other's eyes as she unbuckled his belt. Donny felt his stomach doing somersaults. He could barely imagine this delicate creature, whom he had come to worship in his own way, taking his cock into her sweet little mouth. He was afraid he'd finish before she could even kiss him, and undid his pants to help the process along. When her cool hands grasped him under his boxers, he moaned and tilted his head back against the headboard. It felt better than he could have imagined, like he was going to just die there in her bed from just her hands holding him.

"Tell me if I'm...not doing it right," she said breathlessly. He would have laughed if he could have been able to move, but she had her golden head in his lap before he was able to process what she had said. She was wet and warm, and she flicked him back and forth with her tongue quickly enough that he thrust into her mouth without meaning to, groaning quite loudly. He bit his fist to keep from calling out her name, lost in the sensation of her sucking him so sweetly. When he inadvertently thrust himself further into her mouth again, she took him in, and he felt he was going to black out from pleasure.

"I...'Ise, I'm going to..." he managed to choke out, stroking her hair.

"Mmmhm..." she murmured, nodding. The sound of it, her response with his dick still in her mouth was his breaking point. After all, he was only a boy. Donny's body seized, and he gripped the sheets underneath him and gasped her name as he released into her perfect little mouth. He relaxed into the feeling of being wanted by someone so angelic.

It was one of the happiest moments of his entire life, Sgt. Donowitz remembers.


	4. Hannukah

**Rodelheim, Germany**

He surveys the prisoners silently, grinding his teeth in preparation. Many of them are stone-faced - Sgt. Donowitz knows they are compartmentalizing their emotions so not to appear shaken. He knows the Nazis can do this - separate themselves from the task at hand, make themselves less human in the heat of action. He's heard all the stories, how the younger SS trainees were given puppies to raise and feed, and were ordered to shoot the adolescent dogs through their skulls at the end of their training. Sgt. Donowitz is fully aware of the atrocities these men have caused, and he knows what they must have had to do in order to carry out these orders. A man must justify, eradicate, slice out all empathy from his own realm of understanding. Sgt. Donowitz knows the Nazis do this because he does it himself.

He says in a dead voice that is not his own, "Look at me."

Five heads turn towards him, four of which house dead, grey eyes void of emotion. But the fifth pair of eyes quivers with tears, red-rimmed and panicked. This one he will save for last.

"_Juden_." Donowitz sneers, slowly removing his own dog tags from his black chest hair and holding them out for the Nazi prisoners to see. "_Ich bin...Juden." _He knows it's not grammatically correct, but he frankly does not give a fuck. These are the three words he has bothered to learn in their filthy language, because he wants them to know who he is.

"Hey boys, you know these fellas did at Auschwitz, around Hannukah?" Out of the corner of his eye, Donowitz sees Wicki shift his weight uncomfortably. They've all heard this speech of the sergeant's before.

"What?"

"A Rabbi they had herded in the place appealed to the guards, asking to light the menorah." Sgt. Donowitz continues, kneeling in front of the first prisoner. He looks into the Nazi's dead eyes and tells a story that had him awake for three nights on end, rocking himself in horror, stifling ragged sobs which he hoped Wicki couldn't hear. "These _fuckers _here took eight boys from the work camp, stripped off their little yamulkas, and hung them up by their feet so the rest of the prisoners could see them. You lit them on fire. And _you_..." he slides his handgun from under his jacket, speaking through his teeth at the prisoner, "..._you_ told their mothers they had their menorah right there. Eight little Jewish boys lit up like fucking candles." He narrows his eyes, lowering his voice to make sure it won't quiver. To the first prisoner he hisses, "If I had the time I'd burn you alive myself, you sorry cocksucker." He presses his gun against the guard's face and pulls the trigger.

"You know, sometimes, gentlemen, Jewish boys who get to grow up end up as doctors, or lawyers, or business men. But what these fuckers have done is guarantee that more and more Jewish boys are going to grow up to look like me." He stands to his full height, grinning at the next prisoner in line. Sgt. Donowitz's eyes are alive with black fury - he hasn't slept or shaven in two days. He stands past six feet with a crazed look on his boyish face, which is now streaked with jeweled red from the spray of his last victim's punctured skull. Removing his field jacket with a flourish, he reveals his toned arms and a well-muscled chest on which lies a collection of bloodied and rusted Nazi dog-tags. Donowitz clinks through these with a finger, smirking. "I'm your worst nightmare, boys."

But connecting himself to the thousands of Jewish prisoners and victims has cut too close to the bone. Donowitz's usual speech has progressed in a direction that is new to the Basterds, and each of them consider their own boyhoods in the US as the Sgt. steadies himself. He prays that no one notices, but it is Donny who cracks in the skulls of the next three victims. It is not the weathered Sgt. Donowitz wielding a battalion's force in his calculated swing, but Donny Donowitz using a plastic wiffleball bat. After smashing in his three human targets, the dark-haired Sgt. stops, his chest heaving unevenly. He is lost in his own mayhem, and Aldo Raine's eyes narrow as he stares from across the street. Lt. Raine is considering stopping Donowitz, but the Lt.'s well-timed cheeky grin stays his hand.

Planting himself in front of the last, and youngest Nazi soldier, Donowitz swings his bat idly before catching it in his opposite hand with a sudden crack. He kneels down again to level with the soldier.

"Do you see these?" Donowitz asks quietly, wiping away blood on the end of the bat to reveal dozens of scratched-in names. He drills a hole in the young soldier's face with his eyes until the Nazi complies, and looks down at his weapon in reverence.

"_Was sind sie_?" the young soldier croaks. Donowitz grimaces, and glances towards the Basterds for a translation.

"These are the kids in my neighborhood, in the states. Erika Weis, Hazel Stein. Touch this one." Donowitz speaks softly, turning the bat so one name is facing the soldier. The blond-haired, clear blue-eyed man, perhaps in his twenties, looks quickly from Donowitz to the bat and to Donowitz again. "Go 'head." The soldier does so, extending a shaking finger. Donowitz does not notice, but the Basterds are exchanging glances with each other.

The Bear Jew never takes this long.

"Read it."

"_Was?"_

"I said..._read it._" Donowitz barks, snatching an arm out to grab the soldier by the throat. He forces the man's face close to his bat.

"_L-L-as...L-L-Lao..."_

_ "_Not good enough." Donowitz says. In an instant, he has his shining handgun against the man's cheek. He fires once, and stands to face the other Basterds. Wicki's mouth hangs open in disbelief.

"It _was _a name!"

He does not answer. Sgt. Donowitz turns again to look over the soldier's body, pauses, and fires again into the boy's face. Sgt. Donowitz recalls this incident with great pleasure, but it is Donny who closes the soldier's eyes for him, later after the Basterds have walked away.


	5. Erin Go Bragh

**Boston, Massachusetts 10:11 PM**

"Don't be crazy, Donny, not tonight." Laoise had begged him, holding her face in her hands, her elbows propped on the table. He had forced her out on the town that night, Sgt. Donowitz remembers, having heard from his mother that women needed to be paraded around every once in a while. Although Donny assumed Laoise was content, as he was, to roll around entangled in bed-sheets all evening, he thought he'd give the date thing a try. But things had taken a turn for the worse.

"Damn it, 'Ise, that crack about my nose? Where does he get off saying shit like that to me? He's a fucking waiter and he's dropping hints like that, the anti-Semitic son of a bitch..." Donny realized he had lost his temper, and he could see in Laoise's eyes that she was losing her patience right along with him.

"Donny, people are staring..." she spoke softly. He lowered his voice without forfeiting his rage, and spoke through his teeth at her, a white linen napkin clenched in his fist.

"I'm sick of this. In my own town, 'Ise! I mean, I'm going over to fuckin' _Europe_ to end mother-fuckers like him, and here he is spouting his mouth on our own goddamn American soil."

"Donny!"

"I'm so angry I could break bone, Loaise. When I get to Germany, I'm gonna -"

"Stop it!" she cried suddenly, her eyes wet. Donny stared across the table in shock. People in the restaurant were definitely staring at them now. "You're so stupid sometimes, Donny. _God_, you're so stupid." Laoise pushed back her gold-rimmed chair and stood up, her silver dress swirling around her knees. His Gaelic angel looked furiously at him as if she had something else to say, but bit her bottom lip instead, striding past tables and towards the door. The panicked voice of her boyfriend, or sweetheart, or lover, she wasn't sure, stopped her in her tracks. She turned, now ignoring the pairs of people glaring at them over their candlelit dinners.

"What the hell? What did I do? Just wait a minute, where are you going?" Donny exclaimed, climbing out of his chair so fast that he stumbled on the legs of his suit pants. When he straightened himself to his full height, Laoise noticed grimly how much he had bulked up in the past few months. She choked back a sob, wanting all at once to bring him home and undo his tie and kiss him all over, keeping him safe in their apartment where he couldn't get himself killed. Turning again to leave, Laoise almost walked into their waiter, who had been waiting behind her.

"Watch where you're going!"

"I'm...I'm sorry," she murmured, shuffling past him and towards the coat rack.

Laoise did not hear what was said afterward, but Donny caught it as he followed her.

"Mick bitch..."

Donny stopped. He watched Laoise leave the restaurant tearfully, and gave her half a second to walk out of earshot. Then slowly, he turned.

"What the _fuck _did you say?"

The waiter looked at him briefly, smirking. He flipped his pale blond hair out of his eyes.

"Dress her up like a tart, but she's still a dirty sogue," the waiter grinned. Donny closed the distance between them in two quick strides, connecting his knuckles with the guy's jaw faster than anyone could blink. He shoved the starry-eyed waiter backwards into a table, flipping it to the sound dishes smashing. The people around them gasped and screamed, standing from their seats as to get a better look.

Donny stepped forward and reached down, pulling the waiter up by his collar so that their noses were almost touching. "If I see you again when I'm back, in a couple of months, I swear to God I'll knock your teeth in. You understand me, cocksucker?" He dropped the kid without waiting for a response, brushed off his suit jacket, retrieved his coat, and left the restaurant ignoring the shocked stares of all the patrons inside.

"Aw, Christ..." Donny mumbled, walking straight into the pouring rain. He looked left and right until he spotted Laoise across the street, striding not towards their apartment but to her mother's house. "Oh no you don't," Donny laughed under his breath. He ran after her, catching up easily. After all, she was wearing that vicious pair of heels that made him weak at the knees.

"Baby, please." He ran around her and held his arms out, his face dropping as she walked into him. He hadn't realized she was crying. "No, no, no, I'm sorry. I promised I wouldn't get mad like that. Don't cry, sugar," he said softly, petting her hair as she buried her face in his broad chest. Laoise cried something into his jacket that he didn't catch. "What's wrong?"

She pulled away, looking up at him with a tear-stained face that wrenched his heart.

_You asshole_.

"You...you talk about leaving all the time now, and you're so fucking excited about it." He winced at her cursing - it sounded horrible to hear it from her pretty little mouth. "And it's not good, Donny. It's not. I know you want me to be brave..."

"I don't want to feel anything!"

"...but I just can't face the chance that you're not coming back."

The idea hung between them in silence. He slipped an arm around her waist and gently turned her in the opposite direction, walking her back towards their place. After a few blocks of neither of them speaking, he licked his lips nervously, rolling the sentence around in his mouth before releasing it.

"I...love you." It sounded clumsy, as if he were offering it to her with his stupid hands as big as bear paws, his least favorite part of himself.

She did not look at him, and they kept walking.

That night in their dark bedroom, they fucked quietly, slowly.

She stared up at him, his dark features lit with moonlight as he gazed back down at her, his mouth open slightly as they moved together in a languishing rhythm. Their silence made Donny desperate, and he responded to Laoise's gyrating hips with a ferocity that almost frightened her.

"Tell me you love me," he said bluntly, watching her back arch underneath him.

"Donny, just -"

"No, I _know_ you do," he whispered into her ear, still sliding in and out of her deliciously. "I know you do, baby, and you're afraid to say it because you think I'm going to leave you in June, but I swear to fucking Christ I'd never hurt you, I just want to hear you before I go, please Laoise."

She entwined her fingers in his dark hair, tears streaming as she stared at the ceiling above them. Laoise inhaled shakily, taking in the scent of his sweat and aftershave. Her heart ached.

"I love you so much, Donny."

He quivered all over at the sound of her voice. They smiled at each other, he remembers. They came together that night.


	6. Wonder

**Boston**

Laoise in English class eating a stick of hard candy - crossing her long coltish legs under her desk. She is fifteen years old, all limbs and pale ivory skin. She lifts a hand to her mouth and removes the peppermint length fluidly, holding it in front of her before raising her hand to speak. She gets started on the reading from last night, which Donny didn't bother to do. Laoise cuts into the teacher's opinion with such passion that Donny is baffled when her speech is received with praise._ How does she do that? She practically yells at the teacher and he falls all over himself to agree, _Donny thinks to himself. He leans forward in his desk to get a better look at her, as if the answer to his question lies somewhere between her collarbones.

**Germany**

"Yesterday's kill was a mess, Donny."

"Ah, I wouldn't say that..." he rubs the back of his neck and looks at the floor.

"...you missed."

"Yeah, uh. I don't know, haven't been getting much sleep lately."

"You clear missed his head! We're lucky Ulmar was quick to draw, or we woulda had Nazis _laughing_ at us. You pull shit like that again, and we're gonna have a real problem on our hands! We don't want 'em fucking laughing, Donny! We want them afraid of you!"

Sgt. Donowitz is silent.

"Now, uh...I didn't call you in here to yell at ya."

"The fuck you didn't..." Donowitz mutters.

"Easy! Jesus...you know I would just forget about the whole damn thing, but...some of the boys are thinkin' you might be havin' problems somehow."

_Wicki, I swear to God._

"Anything, er...on your mind?"

**Boston**

Walking Laoise home from school - not letting her know his house was exactly in the opposite direction. Donny put much effort into twisting their conversations so she would be forced to say his name aloud. Somehow, he liked how it sounded on her tongue.

"So you didn't have a boyfriend in your last town or nothin'?"

"What?"

"Just askin'. One of the guys was thinking about asking you out sometime."

"Which one?" she asks, tilting her face towards him.

He grinned at her. "You think I'd tell you that?"

"It's Jacob, isn't it?" Laoise says, too quickly for Donny's comfort. She looked away, and he could not read her expression.

"Is that who you'd want it to be?"

"No. Maybe. He just talks to me a lot."

"Does he?" Donny made a mental note to threaten Jacob Landry, who wasn't nearly smart enough to be jabbering at a girl like Loaise. _Although, _Sgt. Donowitz thinks, _neither was I. _Donny had begun walking Laoise home from school once he had cooked up the lie that his Hebrew lessons were held in her neighborhood. This was a double lie, as Donny had quit Hebrew after his Bar Mitzvah. Also, there were no synagogues on Laoise's side of the train tracks.

"Sure. Well that, and he asked me to help him study for the next Geometry exam." Laoise turned to him, as they had reached her townhouse. "Do you think I should help him?" she asked, stepping a little closer to him. Donny shrugged, unable to focus past the way her face looked just then: pleading, expectant, luminous. She wanted him to say no, but he felt cornered.

"I mean, do what you want," he shrugged. "I'll see you tomorrow."

Turning to go before he could change his mind, Donny stalked off his his hands shoved in the pockets of his black pants, hunched over in frustration. _I'm such an idiot, following her around already and not making a move. What am I gonna do, walk her home and give her advice on other fucking guys? No way, no more of this, I can't stand it._

**Germany**

_ "_Aw, Christ, Aldo..."

"What?" the blond Lieutenant sputters.

"You're sounding a little queer, doncha think? S'nothin' wrong with me, I'm just tired is all. You've been running us up and down these damn hills for weeks - I never get any sleep anymore! By the time I start dozing off, we've got to pack up and leave."

"Yeah, well. This next town'll be deserted. Let the boys know we might stay a day or two. And Donny, uh...keep this conversation to yourself."

"Yeah sure, Aldo." Sgt. Donowitz rolls his eyes. "Can I go, or are you gonna try and kiss me or something?"

"Get the fuck outta here, you moron."

The two men grinned at each other. Donowitz sighed inwardly as he climbed out of the tent, rubbing his chest in victory. The illusion of his sanity was alive for one more day.

**Boston**

Kissing Laoise softly for the first time, her mouth tasting like peppermint that tingled on his lips for hours afterward.

He had convinced her to come watch one of his baseball games, and afterwards the two of them had sat in the dug-out alone, talking about different things and dancing around the real reason they had both stayed so long.

"Lea Kapin says you're an awful boy."

"Yeah, well, Lea can take a powder. I never did anything to her."

"That's not what she says."

"What are you talking to girls like her for, anyway?"

"What do you mean?"

"You're smarter than her. Hell, you're smarter than all of 'em," Donny said, not looking at Laoise. He was afraid if he gazed at her too long he wouldn't be able to stop himself. After all, there wasn't anyone around, and she had worn a new dress to come see him.

"You think you have me figured, then."

He couldn't help it - he turned to her. It actually pained him to look her straight in the face, she was so lovely. "No, that's not it at all."

"You think I'm too intelligent for you?"

"Wait a minute, that's not what I-"

"Well, you're smart too, Donny," he smiled inadvertently to hear her pronounce him name, "and you're...you're just too stupid to see it."

"You came to watch the game just to call me stupid?" he grinned. She looked nervous for once, and it was actually becoming. "By the way, if I'm such an awful guy, why're you out late with me?"

"I hadn't watched a game yet, and for your information, maybe I wasn't coming to see you at all. Maybe I came to see Jacob, and you just bum-rushed me afterwards. Maybe I'm too polite to say no to you, or maybe I like one of your friends."  
"I don't think that's true," Donny said quietly, leaning forward on his hand, which he had placed just next to Laoise on the bench.

"Well...what _do _you think?" Laoise asked, her voice quivering. This was the closest they had ever been to each other, and after what felt like an eternity of walking home from school and making eyes at each other in class, the electric air whispered between them.

He spoke slowly, a cheeky smile creeping on his boyish face. "I think you picked out this dress," Donny touched the hem of her floral skirt, making her shiver, "and did your hair all nice because you knew you were coming to see me this afternoon."

"Donny..."

They moved slowly closer to each other then, speaking at the same time.

"Can I kiss-"

"Yes, please-"

Their mouths met, and Laoise had her arms draped around his shoulder instantly. She was pleased to find that the excitement their conversations yielded her continued into the unspoken give-and-take of kissing someone. Donny, although not able to verbalize it the way Laoise could, was immediately floored by her intuition. He pulled her against his chest with one arm just a little too forcefully, and she bit his bottom lip in return. He explored her tentatively, softly tracing lines on her soft skin with his fingertips, controlling himself as someone might when faced with a rich dessert. _I had no idea if she'd let me kiss her again after that, _St. Donowitz thinks to himself.

Her graceful hands framing the sides of his face. Her tongue playfully meeting his. Her small, firm breasts against his chest - her heart beating through her dress and his dirty uniform. Her fingers in his hair, swirling softly in the curls at the nape of his neck. like an unanswered question, like coming home without knowing he'd been away.

**Germany**

"Hey, how'd it go?" Wicki asks, his face lit up in a way that bothers Donowitz to his core.

"That _was _your idea, I fucking knew it."

"What? You've been crazy! It's not just me."

"Stay out of my shit, man. I won't bother you, you don't bother me." Sgt. Donowitz strides away towards the fire, which Ulmar seems confused about. He leaves Wicki standing awkwardly, his lonely attempt to bond with someone lying in pieces at his feet.


End file.
